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146 neration for the wisdom of antiquity, and strongly impressed with a conviction that everything they see around them is the result of the legislative wisdom of their ancestors, the very existence of a legal principle, or of an established custom, becomes an argument in its favour; and an argument to which no reply can be made, but by tracing it to some acknowledged prejudice, or to a form of society so different from that existing at present, that the same considerations which serve to account for its first origin, demonstrate indirectly the expediency of now accommodating it to the actual circumstances of mankind.

According to this view of the subject, the speculations of Montesquieu were ultimately directed to the same practical conclusion with that pointed out in the prophetic suggestions of Bacon; aiming, however, at this object, by a process more circuitous; and, perhaps, on that account, the more likely to be effectual. The plans of both have been since combined with extraordinary sagacity, by some of the later writers on Political Economy; but with their systems we have no concern in the present section. I shall therefore only remark, in addition to the foregoing observations, the peculiar utility of these researches concerning the history of laws, in repressing the folly of sudden and violent innovation, by illustrating the reference which laws must necessarily have to the actual circumstances of a people,—and the tendency which natural causes have to improve gradually and progressively the condition of mankind, under every government which allows them to enjoy the blessings of peace and of liberty.

The well-merited popularity of the Spirit of Laws, gave the first fatal blow to the study of Natural Jurisprudence; partly by the proofs which, in every page, the work afforded, of the absurdity of all schemes of Universal Legislation; and partly by the attractions which it possessed, in point of eloquence and taste, when contrasted with the insupportable dulness of the systems then in possession of the schools. It is remarkable, that Montesquieu has never once mentioned the name of Grotius;—in this, probably, as in numberless other instances, conceiving it to be less expedient to attack established prejudices openly and in front, than gradually to undermine the unsuspected errors upon which they rest.

If the foregoing details should appear tedious to some of my readers, I must request 5